Closing Bell - How the latest jobs data changes the market calculus 9/4/26

Episode Date: September 4, 2026

The jobs report resets the debate around the economy, rates and the Fed. Apollo Chief Economist Torsten Slok breaks down the data and what it means for monetary policy after the market reprices the path ahead. Samsara CEO Sanjit Biswas discusses the company’s latest earnings and the outlook for connected operations and AI. Meantime, oil and diesel prices stay in focus as energy markets move. The show also digs into Robinhood, crypto and the growing tokenization trade. Bensignor Investment Strategies’ Rick Bensignor reads the technical tea leaves on whether markets are finding a bottom. Vital Knowledge’s Adam Crisafulli looks ahead to the key catalysts that could drive markets next week. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The bell's bringing an end to the trading day at the NYSE. Stop Soldier's suicide ringing the bell and at the NASDAQ. Teach for America, New York, closing out the week at the NASDAQ downstairs. Welcome to closing bell overtime, live from Studio B at the NASDAQ market site. I'm Mike Santoli. Melissa Lee is off today. Stocks falling after a stronger than expected jobs report. The Dow losing about 280 points, the S&P 500 and the NASDAQ composite, both lower by about 3 tenths of a percent.

The NASDAQ 100, however, with the Dowell 20, however, with the Dowell 20, the small game. For the week, it is a split decision. The Dow slightly lower, the S&P 500, basically flat, but the tech-heavy NASDAQ indexes did manage some gains. And yields, moving higher following the jobs report, especially on the short end, the two-year yield levels not seen since early 2025. We're going to have much more on that coming up. Let's begin, though, with markets as the semis versus software push-pull playing out once again today. Christina Parts-Nevel is joining me here at the NASDAQ to get into all of it. Yeah, I'll start with just the yields because that affects just tech and generally.

Labor markets, resilience really push treasure yields higher. That pressured stocks, Mag 7 pulled back coming off a near record closed yesterday, led by Nvidia and Apple. And I know you've said it a few times today, Mike, but to your point, the group's dropped enough to look cheap again. Invidia up about 5% maybe back in favor just on this week. Memory Trade 2 also back after an overnight lift, specifically in South Korea, S.K. Heinix, you can see closing.

8% higher sand disk, the DRAM ETF storage names like Seagate, all closing higher today. Software, though, the soft spot. Often the case when you see chips climbing higher, software going in the other direction, the IGV pretty much headed for a 4.5% weekly loss. It's worse since July, so not that long ago, even after a clean beat from Snowflake earlier this week, which lifted the entire group. Today you got some profit taking, also some weak guidance from guideware. led lower and then UiPath slipped as a conachore cut.

Actually, they cut it to hold saying that the valuation was just a little too high after a big run. And then you also had Z-scaler falling despite its own clean beat as cautious full-year guidance overshadowed with the quarter. Adobe closing lower two. There was a leadership shake up there. One person leaving, people thought it was going to be the next CEO. And I'm going to end on some more negative stocks. Tesla sliding after regulators opened a probe into whether the cyber cab meets federal safety standards. or it's following its cyber cab rollout just yesterday.

Also wiping out yesterday's gains, shares down about 6%, but still up on the week. Last but not least, Lulu Lemon. Do you wear Lulu? Somehow no. Yeah. Okay, so Lulu tanking as sales slowdown in another outlook cut sent it to its lowest level since 2018,

a rough welcome for incoming CEO, Heidi O'Neill, who starts on Tuesday. Shares down 17%. Mike does not wear Lulu. A rough one or an easy entry point. We'll see for a new CEO. Far as low. I guess we'll have to see.

Christina, thank you. This morning's employment report showing a gain of 162,000 jobs, much more than was expected. So how is that going to affect the Fed's plans? Steve Leesman joins us now to get into all of it. Hey, Steve. Hey, thanks very much, Mike. Yeah, the employment report, which is the market thinking about Fed rate hikes, sparking a tweet from the president, essentially threatening tariffs if the Fed doesn't cut rates. The debate is whether today's 162,000, gain in the start of resurgence of revision to the mean after several months of weakness. The strong numbers you can see there follow job gains is 21,000 in July and 31,000 in June. The three-month average now, 71,000. I would call that healthy, but not necessarily barn burning. Here's some of the data that we're looking at. Leisure in hospitality is up 62,000, but it had lost 75,000 the prior two months.

Local government education up by 42,000. it lost 58,000 the last month. Health care, 28,000. That was good. Construction and manufacturing, up 40,000. Some of that could be an effect of what's happening with the AI buildout. Now, futures markets, they modestly increase the probability of a September. High, you can see right there, up to 57% from 50% for September, and then go to December, it's up to 86% from 51%. Sorry, from, yeah, that's right, 51%. President Trump, meanwhile, took, He threatened tariffs on countries with which the U.S. has a trade deficit if the Fed doesn't cut interest rates. Here's what he said.

Lower the rate or I'll stop trading with countries with which we have a deficit. The Fed board with its great new leader must get smart. Be patriots for a change. Now, countries that have a deficit with the U.S., well, they usually take their dollars and recycle them back into treasuries, which would lower interest rates. So unclear, Mike, how that would help the president's cause there of seeking lower interest rates. Well, for sure. Yeah. I mean, obviously what it does is it sort of crystallizes some of what we would have expected to be, at least some of the rhetorical pressure on Kevin Warsh. But the thing is, I mean, everyone seems to be on the same page here in terms of inflation is the only thing, really. We have to be concerned with the job market today, kind of reaffirm that, if anything. And, you know, even 6040 or whatever we're at in terms of Fed odds, there's some suspense there ahead of those inflation numbers next week. Yeah, and this may be the new normal, Mike.

We may go in with this idea. I think we went in 70, 30, until the last meeting, we may go in 6040. The problem I have with all that is that Kevin Worse wanted to talk less to get a clear signal from the market. Well, what if the market's response is kind of muddy? I mean, how does that help the Fed Chair? We're just not getting the kind of guidance we used to get. We got a little bit more last Friday in Jackson Hole.

But, you know, I was talking to somebody this morning. or this afternoon, Mike, and he said to me, wouldn't it be ridiculous? Isn't it ridiculous that a Fed rate hike will depend upon whether the CPI comes in at 0.24, which rounds down to 0.2 or 0.26, which rounds up to 0.3. Are we really there? Is that the place where we are right now? One would be hot and one would be okay.

Right. I mean, obviously, look, I mean, this would be a turn in policy. The last move was a cut. It always ends up maybe being a little bit of a close call. I guess I always would stand back and say, if it's that much of a close call, maybe we're not necessarily in an emergency that we're clearly we have to respond to something. But we'll see if in fact, you know, the market is really sensitive to whether it's one or the others. We get those numbers next week. Steve, thanks very much.

I want to get more on that trade story from President Trump's threat. Megan Kisela has the details. Megan. Mike, it was a pretty explicit threat from the president saying lower the rate or else I'll cut off all trade with which the U.S., with countries with which the U.S. is running a deficit. As you know, Mike, that is most of the U.S.'s major trading partners. But the president doubled down on this just in the last hour or so in the Oval Office. Take a listen to some of what he said.

If we don't trade with them, they don't have any money to pay the bills. And if we're not going to be treated properly, we're going to do that. And all we have to do to cut our trade deficit with the country is not trade with them. He went on to say, Mike, that he believes the U.S. should have the lowest, interest rate in the entire world. Now, a lot to unpack from this. The first being that most economists do not view the trade deficit as a bad thing. They don't view it as bad for the economy. Generally, it's a reflection of U.S. consumers having more buying power than consumers overseas. It's viewed as something that makes goods cheaper in the U.S. and around the world. And if we

cut all of that off, prices for goods would likely increase. U.S. workers and businesses would have to shift from focused on higher skilled areas and research and services industries, for example, to production to make sure that consumers here did have goods to buy. The president, though, not acknowledging much of that, but making it clear to the Federal Reserve, he wants to and believes he has the power to cut off all trade with most of these major trading partners unless he sees them lower the rate. Right. In general, I mean, it's a theme that he hits all the time. He thinks that the U.S. should be rewarded for its good economic performance and maybe not have to share as much the wealth or pay higher interest rates along the way, Megan.

It's tricky to make it all work in terms of the math and the concepts. Thank you very much, Megan Cassella. Following the jobs report, the two-year yield jumped to its highest level since January of 2025. Rick Santelli in Chicago with more on the bomb markets reaction, Rick. Yeah, and you know, the story you were just discussing, there's a lot of hyperbole that comes from the president. And one thing I would point out, I don't want to unpack all of that. But by looking at the markets, by looking at interest rates, they obviously look through these comments.

Come on. Now, if we look at 3.1 percent, look at that chart. That is the lowest average hourly earnings in over five years. It's hard to imagine that a good jobs report, let's look at 162,000 second best job creation of the year, is a good jobs report necessarily mean that the Fed has to tighten? Well, the knee-jerk reaction in Fed Fund futures might have pointed to that. However, I'm not sure that I really think it's going to occur. And finally, as you pointed out, Mike, look at twos and tens there.

Two's had the much bigger move. You can see it on the percentages. But this chart, the next one, this is a two-day chart of Fed Fund futures for December. Forget all the numbers. When it goes up, it's making less probabilities of a hike when it goes down. It increases those. Yesterday, Waller came out, and it pushed the probabilities down. Today, the jobs numbers come out.

It pushes the market down, raising the high probabilities. But really, it is all about next week in CPI and PPI. Back to you. Have a nice holiday, Mike. You as well, Rick. Thanks so much. Well, after today's upside surprise from the jobs day to the Fed, has only a few data points left before its next rate decision.

Joining me now with his take on how the Fed proceeds from here is Torson Slok. He's chief economist at Apollo. Torson, I mean, it's kind of funny because the debate is very lively, on, you know, does inflation demand move from the Fed in terms of hiking? And would that be a mistake? And how does it fit into the overall condition of the economy right now? Yeah, because the issue is inflation can either be driven by demand, meaning a strong economy.

And if that's the case, the Fed can raise interest rates and slow the economy down. But if inflation instead is driven by supply, for example, oil prices or for that matter, tariffs, it's a lot harder for the Fed to raise interest rates and deal with that. because if you raise interest rates, it's not going to change anything in the Middle East. It's not going to change anything on tariffs. So that's why the diagnosis of why is inflation still elevated becomes very important. And the good news going into next week is inflation has been trending down. We saw that also on average our earnings today.

But we did get one number this week, namely ISM, prices paid for the service sector. And that did spike higher. So there are some reasons to be a bit worried that that is a leading indicator for PCE and CPI. So that does mean that Friday next week we could see some upward push, because the service sector, which is two-thirds of the CPI index, is beginning to say that it's getting a little bit hotter. So the short answer is some indicators on the demand side and in particular ISM services prices paid that came out this week is suggesting that maybe inflation could surprise to the upside next Friday. I guess that was somewhat echoed by the beige book as well where there's a lot more focus on rising prices. How much will it matter if the Fed goes 25 basis points?

Now, the Fed doesn't often just want to go once. If there's a case for hiking, usually they think that there's a little bit of a of a, of a, sequence of moves. Yeah, the reason why it doesn't really matter that much is because the source of growth, why the economy is doing so well, is because of AI spending. We're spending a lot of money on building data centers. We're spending a lot of money on energy associated with data centers. Companies are spending a lot of money on models. They're spending money on tokens. All this spending combined adds up in our calculation to about one percentage point of GDP. Normally GDP is two, and roughly 1% now of GDP growth comes from AI spending alone. And AI spending is not done

with any regard to whether the Fed fund rate is 4 or 375 or the finer details in the Fed watching. Because people who invest in AI expect returns that are 10, 20, 30%. So because those returns are so much higher than the cost of borrowing, it doesn't really matter when you think about it from a growth perspective because the factor that's driving growth at the moment is the AI spending boom. If that's the case, then isn't it the situation that the bond market is attempting to respond to that heavy demand,

and that almost yield-insensitive demand for new financing, and we'll have to keep bringing market rates higher, or do we not think that has to happen? Absolutely, because we both have now upper pressure on inflation, which argues for short-end rates being higher. That's why Kevin Worses has the challenge going into the next meeting, whether he should hike or not hike. If inflation is high, which it is at the moment,

it's a strong argument therefore for inflation and rates staying higher. In the long end, not only do we have inflation being higher, but we also have some challenges with the fiscal situation, So that's also putting up our pressure on long-term interest rate. So yes, the whole yield curve is elevated. And if the growth factor that's driving the economy is AI spending, that means that that's not sensitive to interest rate. So actually, that's exactly why you should expect to have yields to stay higher for longer

across the entire yield curve, because a little bit of a Fed hike, even in September, is not going to slow down the significant spending we're seeing at the moment in AI. And as has been remarked upon, I mean, it is a global move higher in yield. So whether that's fiscal, whether it is in general, kind of inflationary dynamics throughout the world. It's not as if it's just, you know, Alphabet's borrowing a lot of money to build data centers. Very important because it is indeed the case that it's not only the U.S. that's seeing rates higher for longer.

Rates are also going up in Germany. They're also going up in the U.K., and they're actually also going up in Japan. And that is exactly for the two reasons that you're mentioning, namely inflation is higher, more or less everywhere, a little bit of an exception in the euro area, but in particular in the U.S., and also in Japan. But you also at the same time have fiscal challenges that continue. to get a lot of attention, and that's putting a lot of pressure on rates in the long end. So that's why for markets, the stock market could potentially continue to do okay,

simply because the AI boom continues. So that's why everything comes down to this issue, that AI is not only important for investing in my 6040 portfolio, but it's also really important for the economy. Bottom line, the Fed in a week and a half, do they feel compelled if, let's say CPI is slightly warm, to raise rates as a signal to say we're on the case. Target, it's been above target for long enough, and we have to at least make a gesture in that direction. Yeah, we have 12 voting members on the FMC.

Three of them at the last FMC meeting in July, they said we need to raise interest rates. So the question now is, has Kevin Walsh with his speech in Jackson Hole last Friday, has he also put himself into the corner together with the others who said that we should be hiking rates? We think that they will hike rates at the September meeting, both because the employment report was strong today, but also because there's some upside risk to inflation next week, because of the ISM prices paid indicator this week being so strong to the upside. By the way, we are showing you the closing bell at Cebo in Chicago that ends the regular trading day for options.

Is there any weak point towards any economy that you feel as if incremental moves higher in bond yields in short-term rates may cause some cracks? Yeah, and what's really interesting about that is that if you look at GDP, it has several components, and the components that are doing well is, of course, AI is doing exceptionally well. But the components that are not doing well are those that are sensitive to interest rates. And that's in particular housing and it's autos. Those sectors are in really, really bad shape

because where interest rates are higher, mortgage rates today are 6.7. They were 2.7 in the pandemic. So for that reason, it's become much more difficult for the housing market where interest rates have gone up. It's become much more difficult for the auto sector. So in that sense, some parts of the economy are indeed responding like the textbook

would have predicted that the transmission mechanism of higher rate are slowing down those sectors. But those sectors that are driving things, namely AI, continue to do well. So that's why in the S&P 500, we've seen significant, of course, continued outperformings by the AI sectors. And those that are interest rate sensitive, of course, continue to struggle. Yeah, with traditional auto sectors, a very small part of the S&Ps. So obviously, it doesn't move the needle. Torsten, good see you.

Thank you. Thanks so much. All right, shares of Samsara, bucking the software downtrend today, one of the few IGV components in the green on the day following its results. Up next, we'll talk to the company's CEO about the quarter and the threat of AI displacement. Stay with us. Welcome back to overtime. Samsara shares higher today after a big second quarter earnings beep, also raising its full-year outlook and notching a fourth straight quarter of profitability.

With me now in an exclusive CNBC interview, Sanjit Biswas. He's Samsara CEO, and it's great to have you on. I'd love to hear you talk about what is driving this rising backlog that you've seen. What are the kind of underlying customer trends and demand patterns that you're taking advantage of as you, you know, essentially kind of digitized sensors and all kinds of physical technology? Well, Mike, first, thanks for having me on. Really, what we're seeing in the market right now is this wave of digitization going through physical operations companies. And so we're talking about industries like construction, whether there's data center construction, utility construction, grid modernization, people building new roadways. And it's just there's a tremendous amount of activity in the physical economy.

These are industries that often haven't seen new technology be put in place for many decades. And so they are interested in sensor data. They're interested in AI. But most importantly, they're interested in solving problems. And we're helping them do that by digitizing their operations, tying it together with cutting edge AI, and then showing them insights and really actions they can take. to be safer and more efficient as they do their work. Are you able to do that for customers? I guess in the absence of, let's say, new equipment purchases,

does it have to come along with essentially the physical equipment that would be equipped for that? That's a great point. Most of these businesses have a tremendous number of physical assets already in place. So think about bulldozers, excavators, trucks, trailers, so on. Most of those assets actually are not tracked today, by modern technology. So a lot of what we're doing is retrofitting that with hardware products we supply. You can get a new truck or a new trailer with SAMHSAAR onboard. But more often than not, what we're

seeing is people have a large existing footprint, and they want to improve their utilization rates of those assets. Fuel prices have been high, so they want to find ways to drive more efficiently, maybe replan their routes in terms of how they're operating. And this is all about the existing footprint, which is quite massive. And, you know, I guess AI can be defined in a Broadway or more specific ways, but how is it manifesting in your business? Well, for our customers, it's really about using AI to analyze this just vast amount of data. And if you think about things like GPS location, we've had GPS trackers for a long time, but no one's had time to sit in front of a screen and watch GPS all day.

What we're able to do now is put AI to work and let you know, hey, is something going on off hours that's anomalous? Or is there something that's not being utilized enough? and that's an unlock that wasn't possible a couple of years ago. And you've highlighted, I guess, maybe more diversification among customer sizes, customer types out there. Where is it, I suppose, most strong in terms of demand? So we've been seeing strong demand across different industries, but one of the themes that

has emerged is the larger and more complex your operation, the more challenges you have that we can help solve. So this last quarter, we saw strength in industries like field, services, if you think about your HVAC technicians, your electricians, so on, they have very large footprints. They often operate in many cities at once, and they're trying to find ways to be fundamentally more efficient. We also saw strength in areas like public sector, where we're starting to see cities modernize

and say, can we use data to understand all the road conditions, all the potholds, for example, and fill them in a more efficient order. So it has been really interesting, but overall, I would say if I step back, it's around larger, more complex physical operations going digital. And in terms of the actual data center buildout, I'm sure that there are lots of places that that touches your business. But how levered are you to, I guess, the overall volume of activity there? Well, I would say there is a lot of ongoing activity in data center buildout, but it's also related to other trends like grid modernization, for example, that are multi-decade really buildouts that are happening. And then when it comes to data centers, there are a lot of different trades and other trends.

you know, construction companies, building materials, companies that are involved. But these folks are all the backbone of our economy. So while they're helping build data centers, and that's been a tailwind effect, they're also helping maintain our roadways and modernize electrical grid. Sure. Obviously, hopefully that continues at a pretty good pace. Sancho, really appreciate you coming on and filling us in. Thank you. Thanks, Mike. All right. It has been an active day on social media from an investor perspective.

We had AMC CEO Adam Aaron with some talk. upwards for Robin Hood and Bill Pulte, sinking a handful of stocks with his tweets. Well, explain it all coming up and over time. Shares of Fair Isaac, tumbling 16%. Bill Pulte, head of the FHFA, says he'll instruct Fannie and Freddie to use Vantage score to evaluate borrowers. Vantage score competes with Fair Isaac's FICO. Pulte also naming the Credit Bureau's Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion as, quote, overcharging Americans for far too long.

All those stocks down, these have been familiar targets. of Bill Park Pulte over the last couple of years. Oil prices meantime, pulling back slightly today, but still up nearly 10% on the week. Pippa Stevens joining me now with more on oil and other products. Yeah, Mike. So a positive week here for oil on the back of the U.S. and Iran returning to military exchanges. But it is diesel that everyone is watching after the national average hit a record 585 today. Futures were down on the day, so perhaps we'll see a bit of a break in the march higher.

But the spread between crude and diesel is growing, as roughly. Russia extends its ban on diesel exports, while product tanker transits through her moves have not picked up significantly. Now, Tom Closa from Gulf Oil, noting that while total U.S. refinery runs are above last year, the U.S. is actually producing 127,000 barrels per day less distillate than in 2025. And thanks to an abundance of lighter and sweeter crudes rather than more medium and heavy grades. Now, looking across the country, a number of states seeing record diesel prices today, including Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Texas. that's problematic. As the harvest season gets underway, as this chart from Bank of America shows, Acres harvested picks up in September before peaking in October, which is the busiest month of the year. And all that farm equipment, of course, Mike, is run by diesel.

For sure. I mean, I guess it can break a couple different ways. Obviously, it kind of lifts reported inflation, but also just kind of acts as cost friction in the whole system. It's hard to see it as anything, though, but inflation in the pipeline that's not going to necessarily be a dress soon if, as you say, there's kind of no way to bring more product on quickly. Yeah, I mean, refiners are running flat out around the world right now, given that it is very attractive economic. So if you have the capacity, you are running. And I think one thing that's notable here with diesel, that's not necessarily the case with gasoline, is that it's harder to find that demand destruction level, because it is a lot of commercial buyers when it comes to

diesel. If you are a farmer, you have to harvest your crust. Exactly. And so, you know, to the extent that that is the only lever for prices to come down, it seems like it could be higher. But, you know, we saw at the beginning of this oil found a way to market. So perhaps there is some diesel that's going to come through. That was a big talking point this week that, oh, maybe more is getting out of the straight that has been reported. But, I mean, it didn't really seem to impact prices this week. Yeah, I mean, it's crude. Yeah, so product tangoes are not getting through at the same rate.

But perhaps there is some, you know, underreported slack in the system. Right. Right. Well, the price will tell us, hopefully. All right, Pippa, thank you. All right. Time for a CNBC News Update with Contessa Brewer. Hi, Contessa.

Hi, Mike. The Supreme Court has cited. with Republicans today granting an emergency appeal in a fight with Democrats over campaign ad prices. The justices halted a lower court ruling that found cheaper broadcast ads within 60 days of a general election should be limited to candidates. Republicans argued the cheaper ads should also be applicable to the party committees when they coordinate with candidates. President Trump confirmed this afternoon that U.S. envoy Steve Whitkoff and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law, are heading abroad this weekend for a renewed attempt to strike a peace deal in the Ukraine war.

The president told reporters today the U.S. had a new proposal to present. Whitkoff and Kushner are expected to hold meetings in both Russia and Ukraine. That's according to multiple reports. Three Vietnam War veterans and an architectural historian filed a lawsuit today asking a judge to block the groundbreaking of President Trump's 250-foot-tall arch in the nation's capital. They say this project has not been authorized by Congress. Congress and still needs federal review. Interior Secretary Doug Bergam announced yesterday that excavation work will start over the next two weeks. That's the news for now on this holiday Friday, Mike. I'll send it back to you. All right. Contessa, thanks so much. It is hardly a battle fit for the silver screen, but there's a feud emerging between the CEO of AMC and Robin Hood over something one of them is calling outrageous and disgusting.

Details and the impact it could have on their stocks, as when closing bell overtime returns. Welcome back to closing bell overtime, live from the NASDAQ market site. Stocks mostly lower as yields rise following the stronger than expected jobs report. The Dow losing 271 points. The S&P 500 losing four tenths of 1%, three-tenths lower for the NASDAQ composite, though the NASDAQ 100 did post a small gain. Invidia and Meta, both closing higher, adding on to strong weeks. Apple fell 2.5% ahead of its product announcement next week.

Tesla lower by 6% and gave back yesterday's size. gains. There's a CEO feud emerging on Wall Street, and it's between two companies that don't even compete against each other. Earlier this summer, Robert had launched hundreds of tokenized stocks on its offshore blockchain platform, including AMC. Those tokens give investors exposure to the securities without actually getting shareholder rights. It's not full ownership of actual stocks. And now CEO Adam Aaron is sounding off, posting on Twitter on X, I find this practice to be contemptible, outrageous, disgusting, detestable, and excusable vile. How can it possibly be legal? We have no connection to this at all and do not condone it in any way.

Robin Hood's CEO Vlad Tenev giving a very blunt response. What's the concern? Aaron, when then calling stock tokens a quasi-fake market, adding, I hereby call on you and Robin Hood to voluntarily see synthesis the trading of AMC stock tokens if you don't. Our high-price securities counsel has been asked to see whether we can force you to stop. That, prompting Robin Hood chief legal officer and former SEC Commissioner Dan Gallagher to post, we know a little something about the U.S. securities laws and will not desist. Send your lawyers and we will educate them. AMC shares closing about 5% higher on this news as that kind of very loyal trader base decided this is something to get excited about. Robin Hood falling about 2% worth knowing that AMC has issued an enormous volume of new shares to keep its finances in order over the last six years.

and so it feels as if it needs to have direct access to selling its own stock to retail investors. Now, shares of Robin Hood, they're down today, but the stock is leading the S&P 500 this week. It was up 17% as traders grew bullish on the company's prediction market's efforts. Both Bitcoin and Robin Hood are up more than 20% in the last three months. So should investors expect more upside ahead for the stock? Joining us now is Needham Senior Research Analyst John Todaro. John, it's good to see you. I certainly want to get to the sort of tokenized securities angle at some point.

But initially, you recently got more favorable on Robin Hood, and mostly a crypto story? For us, it is, right? So we did put out a note on August 24th where we were effectively saying crypto has bottomed. For a few different reasons. One, you have a cooling off in AI stocks here, so it allows some capital to rotate back into crypto. You also had a lot of the selling pressure already happened in the underlying tokens. The Bitcoin miners sold more Bitcoin in the first half to 2026 than any other period. You had the Dats capitulating and selling some.

And then also sentiment had bottomed out, whether that was retail, institutional, or crypto-native. That had bottomed out. So you're starting to see some activity come back into the markets. And I think that is going to benefit. Certainly Robin Hood, Coinbase as well. but Robin Hood does also have their new chain out there right now, which is seeing a lot of activity, which is at the center of some of that feud. And we think that chain, it's going to longer term, I think be beneficial for Robin Hood

is capturing a lot of activity. We'll see if that sticks around, but so far it's quite hot. Yeah, I mean, it's a good reminder in general that Robin Hood and crypto trading have been really just linked for as long as Robin Hood's been public. And clearly, there's other things going on. has a lot of other kind of efforts and product categories, but that's been, I think, a key impetus. Now, what gives you the confidence that retail traders will become as active and as engaged in Bitcoin after you've had this long period when it's traded down? It's well below its highs.

You feel like it's going to go back to the previous fever? I think eventually you get there. And this isn't the first cycle for Bitcoin. Bitcoin's gone through a number of these. And I would say every time at the bottom, everyone's thinking that it's never going to get back to all-time highs. Retail is flat. out, institutions are flushed out, but it does find a way to come back. And I would say these sentiment indicators are usually a very good indication of where we are in the cycle. And when we ran one of our proprietary indexes that track that, it was showing the worst sentiment levels we had seen since 2022 and 2023. That usually coincides very strongly with the bottom. So confident

here we rebound. It might take a little bit, obviously, to get back to all-time highs. But I do think were in the first innings of going on higher highs. Now, when it comes to the tokens that are, you know, tracking individual stocks, it also, I think, would go along with, you know, the perpetual futures. And of course, you know, the prediction markets, efforts that that Robin Hood and others have really jumped into. I read some of the analyst notes on Robin, and it's all about, you know, the volume of, you know, college football betting as much as it is as anything else. To what degree do you think there's risk to the story that they're just kind of willing to push the limits of what, you know,

a regulator broker's is kind of built to do and leave itself open to some of these critiques that maybe it's overstepped? I think they're operating in a favorable environment, and they're moving very fast, very quickly, and launching a ton of product. So if and when that kind of hits a wall and you do face more risk because of it, you certainly could have some of that. But there's also just another aspect of Robin Hood on delivering products that do have real demand and real staying power potential. So you likely are in some areas that are going to bump into regulatory issues and you are going to have to have legal figure it out, as Robin Hood was saying today on Twitter on X there.

But that being said, there's no denying that they do launch products at breakneck speed. And they're at least capturing the target audience and the audience is engaging with them. Do ultimately they have to take a step back on some of these, perhaps, but they do have a very strong audience base that I would say a lot of the other platforms haven't really been able to tap into and capture quite as well. Yeah, fair enough. It is worth mentioning, of course, that the stock tokens are only available outside the U.S. So that is a little bit of a line that's drawn. John, great to have you today. Thanks so much, John Todaro.

Thanks. Have a nice weekend. You as well. Gold has been essentially flat this year. Up next, we'll break down the charts to see whether the precious metal is on the verge of a potential breakout. And here's a check on a trio of S&P 500 stocks hitting one-year lows today. McDonald's, Lulu Lemon, and L3 Harris. Closingville over time.

We'll be right back. 500 down slightly today, flat for the week and up only a bit over the past three months. So is a breakout anywhere in the charts. Joining me now is Rick Benson, your founder and managing partner of Benson Your Investment Strategies. Rick, great to see you. Mike, thanks for you. You know, S&P 500 has almost tried to drain the drama out of things. It's been pretty well-behaved. I wonder what you see tilted toward at this point based on what happened this week.

Remarkably resilient, but at the same time, the all-time high was made August 13th. Right. We're three weeks past that. The three catalysts in the second half of August that could have given us the boost, which was NVIDIA earnings, that helped. Marvell earnings did not. and then the Jackson Holtz symposium and the effects that the market have felt since them also negative. So despite all this were a decent amount of good news and certainly strong earnings, we've stalled right up against a major target area. Yeah, we see that. Now, what is that? So your inference is what from that?

We're stuck? We're stuck for now. Eventually this market has always pushed through resistance. But for the time being the fact that a spider SPY, ETF target was 782 based on the low in July, the upside, the initial upside target, 782, on the all-time high, 779. Right. We got three points from it, and we can't seem to advance.

Okay. So cautiously optimistic, worried, if we start breaking under 762 on multiple closes, I get a little. Yeah, that's the level that we didn't quite test out this week. Let's get to the 10-year treasury yield. I know you got kind of a layered look at this, but where's it headed? Okay. So ultimately higher. Okay.

And four fits of Wall Street agrees with me, which could be a problem. Because 80% say rates are going higher. Yeah. But in a secular long-term point of view, there's a lot to think we're going higher. My first mortgage in 1987 was over a 7% mortgage. Yeah. People now are crying over 6% and 7% mortgages. But when you think of long-term in history, the all-time high in the U.S. 10-year was 15.8%.

And we fell to 40 basis points as the low. Halfway in between 8.11%. Now, we don't have to go back to halfway. Right. But we could easily go to 5.6 to as much as 10. And I don't think we're going there, but even 5.6 would be a minimum upside target here. Okay. So let's take a look at what we have.

Here's a basic 10-year chart. Nothing on it. Sideways for quite some time. Let's add to the next slide. We're going to put a moving average up now. What do we see? Now we have a 200-week moving average. Caught that low several months ago.

Okay. Let's add one more chart. So, yeah, that's 200-week. All right, there you go. 200-week-moving average. Now, there's a horizontal line that had five lows at 4% to 3.95. The fifth one coincided with the 200-week. And look at the up-trent line.

That came from the test of the all-time low. Started at 50 bibs. Right. So when we got there, several things came together, And within two weeks of that happening, which was late March, I believe I told clients, you will not see 4% again in this cycle. Rates are going higher. And my ultimate target, and I'm going to put it here on, 6.07%. All right.

Excellent. Impressively precise. We've got to quickly hit gold because that's actually been quite interesting here. Right. So gold made its peak. We sell off the, and certainly very high peak, nobody expected it. Sold off 30%. We've got about half of it back.

I think we're stuck now for a bit of time in between. We're not going to go just scream up to new all-time highs. But I think the low that was made two months ago is probably a solid low. So consolidate in here. Ultimately, however, if gold pushes to new all-time highs, my upside target would be about 15% above the all-time highs. So in GLD terms, that's up at 588. Okay. So that's almost 6,000.

45% from where we are now. All right. That's a big if. but it would be a dramatic move. Rick, great to see you. Thanks so much. Appreciate it. Oracle earnings and a pair of key inflation reports could be market moving events next week. We'll discuss how to trade them next.

Closonville overtime, live from the NASDAQ market site. We'll be right now. Set up with what's on tap for next week. The markets are closed for Labor Day on Monday, of course, but we'll get the Consumer Credit Report on Tuesday. Thursday's highlights are the August producer price index, existing home sales and weekly jobless claims. And the week closes out with the August.

consumer price index, and consumer sentiment. On the earnings calendar, results from Cigna, American Eagle, Chooey, and Aero Virement are out on Wednesday. Oracle, the big name on Thursday, along with Adobe and Macy's, and Kroger's results are out on Friday. So with Oracle earnings and CPI numbers next week, set to test both the tech trade and rate expectations, what could move markets most. With me now to discuss what he's got his eyes on is vital knowledge founder Adam Chris Affoli. Adam, good to see you. good to see you so you know we we kind of escaped this week we even kind of went through all of

august kind of holding trend absorbing some concerns about rates and oil and maybe the ai capex story what do you think is going to be sort of the next incremental prime mover as we look to next week uh so the events you mentioned are going to be crucial specifically the CPI which will be kind of the deciding factor for the september fed meeting oracle earnings will be the next major scheduled AI data point. And then perhaps the biggest event next week, and it's not clear if it will happen next week, will be the Anthropic S-1, which multiple reports that just could arrive as soon as next week, which will provide a lot of insight, you know, a specific financial detail on one of the two big frontier labs, which we haven't really seen

in terms of ordered financials, projections, backlog, et cetera. So we're going to get a lot of critical AI updates next week along with that important inflation reading. Yeah, I mean, you mentioned the Anthropic, guess one, which is coming. We don't know if it's next week. And, you know, I cited you your comment yesterday saying that if Open AI and Anthropic were already public companies, they would likely have been down yesterday on a lot of the AI news flow around maybe Nvidia Hugging Face, Meta's new model. Why would you think that that would be the case? The frontier, the entire industry seems to become increasingly competitive, which, you know, which I think doesn't bode well for the frontier labs, which are still, you know,

posting very large losses. And so you had meta launching a brand new model this week that's very capable and very cheap. Google launched a new model this week. Open AI seems to have, you know, reached, is back in the lead as far as the frontier race with Astra. And then the hugging face deal with Nvidia is an enormous deal. It really does seem like Nvidia is going to become a major player in openweight, open source models, making them very capable and very cheap. And so the industry is becoming extremely competitive.

that's not to say that AI is not, you know, still growing very quickly. Token consumption is exploding, CAPEX is exploding. But the competition is intensifying, and that doesn't bode well for the economics of a lot of these major companies. Yeah, I've wondered if that had a little bit to do with what we've seen in weakness in the AI-adjacent industrials. Now, maybe they're kind of trying to get their footing right here, but they seem very dependent on many, many years of backlog. and this idea that you have the sustained capacity to spend for a long time to come? Yeah, absolutely. You know, over the last several weeks, we've definitely seen a pretty aggressive pivot

away from the pick and shovel stocks towards software. And so, you know, it's going to be interesting to see if that could continue. There's actually, you know, a sense that the anthropic S1 could help reignite interest back into those picking shovel stocks, some of these semiconductor names, some of the industrials that you mentioned. And you saw that a little bit today where software came for sale and that other part of the tech trade rebounded. But definitely, I think there's just a whole lot of hesitation. People are scrutinizing the industry more than they were before, making a much more nuanced look at the backlog.

You know, the extent of that can be realized and then the margins and then the cash implications of all the spending. All right. And then, of course, macro, you mentioned CPI. PPI on Thursday is a pretty good input into the Fed's preferred PCE inflation. readings. I mean, how much of a swing factor, how much of a maker break is a potential Fed rate hike in a couple of weeks for equity markets? I personally think a hike on the 16th at the meeting in September, coupled with messaging to the extent that, you know, this isn't the start of an aggressive tightening cycle. It's a more kind of a one and done or at most a two and done type of

action. I think that would be a positive outcome for markets. It would help to rebuild credibility. it would help to potentially reduce yields at the long end of the curve, and it wouldn't really provide a massive incremental burden on the market. So if we get a cool CPI on Friday and the Fed stays on hold in September, we're just going to have this debate again in October. We'll have this debate again in December. And so I think if you hike in September, coupled with language, again, to the extent that we're on hold now for an extended period that we are seeing disinflation,

then I think that removes an overhang from the market. So that's personally, in my view, I think the ideal outcome for equities right now. Although, I mean, quickly, I mean, the Fed would rarely hike once and say mission accomplished, right? No, I think, you know, I think they're going to suggest that they're still going to be very diligent. They're still going to be very vigilant and looking at inflation closely. They're going to be monitoring all the various components of the CPI and the PCE. But, again, I think that we're going to have this debate, well, they or won't they. Yeah.

To the extent that continues, I think that will remain an overhang for the. market. So if we can get that off the table, you know, I think that would act as, you know, as a cathartic moment for the market. Maybe a best case. All right. Sounds great. Adam, Christopher. Thanks so much. Have a great weekend. That does it for overtime as well. Fast money begins after this quick break.